Duality In Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho

Perhaps no other film changed so drastically Hollywood's perception of the horror film as did PSYCHO. More surprising is the fact that this still unnerving horror classic was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, a filmmaker who never relied upon shock values until this film. Here Hitchcock indulged in nudity, bloodbaths, necrophilia, transvestism, schizophrenia, and a host of other taboos and got away with it, simply because he was Hitchcock.

The idea of fear of various characters is portrayed in the film using a variety of techniques.

In the Movie, American Psycho, Patrick Bateman demonstrate challenges to identify his unique type of personality theories. The purpose of this essay is to review a selected film as a Psychology student, and discuss it from a psychological perspective. Also in this paper providing a diagnosis for a character in the movie and discuss the behaviors that support the selected diagnosis, and to explain and discuss the mental illness depicted in the film.

Normans mother is dead, but is alive in the mind of Norman. She is therefore dominating Normans mind. Alfred Hitchcock makes us infer that the mother was alive throughout the film. This manipulates the audience throughout the film. The audience thinks that the mother is alive, and therefore, she can potentially be the killer in the film.

Although the violence in both films is quite obvious as the films progress, both film’s psychological horror is present in the early stages of the films, this form of horror is essential to both films in gaining the audiences attention and developing their own horror. This is portrayed effectively by the use of bland, uninteresting isolated settings. This isolation establishes the tense atmosphere of the films, and the everyday settings of a small village and a block of flats gives a sense of reality to the horror. This creates a relationship between the audience and the setting of the horror, and this is developed to create some effective jolts as both films progress. Characterisation can be used to isolate the audience from the horror, or develop a relationship with it, depending on how the characters are established.

Since it’s infancy at the beginning of the eighteenth century, horror has followed certain conventions that results in an awakening of the senses, evoking intense emotions of fear and terror in the audience. Horror feeds off triggering the primal fears embedded within all of humankind, creating a sense of menace that is the very substance of this genre. Furthermore, the central menace of a piece tends to enlighten the human mind to the world of the paranormal and the enigmatic, dark side of the unknown. The movie “Psycho” directed by Alfred Hitchcock is a perfect example. Infamous for its shower scene, but immortal for its contribution to the horror genre, “Psycho” was filmed with great tact, grace and art in regards to horror conventions.

Alfred Hitchcock in the film Psycho and Peter Shaffer in his stage production Equus both explore the true nightmares that manifest from sexual and emotional repression. The writers emphasise the motives and the reason for the characters actions opposed to how the causations of this repression occurred. Conversely, both works draw on the common theme of the disturbed human psyche, offering a critical perspective on the upbringing of each individual with regards to their early development, each characters subcontious fixations and abnormal behaviours through the use characters behaviours and representations. The characters Norman Bates and Marion Crane in Psycho and Allan Strang and Martin Dysart of Equus all face internal struggles against

Personally to us, the director’s intention was to show how the psychology state of a man depending on his condition can affect his life and those around him. In this case, Norman Bates is affected by the various scenarios that happens in his life. His mother’s passing affected him the most as he murdered her. He took over his mother figure to get rid of guilt and started being her. He was in need of help, but he isolated himself from the outside world and this ‘mother’ personality had a very dominant role in his personal life which resulted in the murders he

Hitchcock’s Psycho is a great representative of horror and thriller genres. The director masterfully creates an atmosphere of suspense and creates tension. Hitchcock blends characteristics of a thriller with horror, making the audience terrified. The director creates situations that can happen to anybody of the viewers, and thus, makes such scenes even more scaring and disturbing. For instance, the scene of the murder in a shower impresses the audience to a

He is know for his use of precisely zooming in the camera to show a specific perspective to allow the viewers to be more perceptive of certain details, giving us hints based on the surrounding objects. It helps the audience to figure out what might be coming or which direction the storyline may be going in. For example, the famous shower scene in Psycho, when Norman Bates’ mother is about to murder Marion Crane. When the shower curtain is pulled back and we see the killer, her face is completely darkened and out of focus, but the knife with which the mother kills Crane, is captured perfectly. This camera effect, as well as the close up of Crane’s face when she is about to be killed, allows the spectators to truly be the voyeurs and fully experience the tension the scene is trying to encapsulate. We experience similar shots throughout The Birds, but specifically when Hendren’s character Melanie Daniels approaches the attic, investigating some suspicious sounds. When she opens the door, almost immediately she is swarmed by hundreds of malicious birds attacking her from all angles. Hitchcock meticulously places the camera on Daniels’ face, getting a close up shot of her terror, in order to present a more urgent sense of

The investigator questioned Norman, but wasn’t pleased with the lack of information. He went back later and tried to talk with Norman’s mother in the mansion, but in-turn was killed by the “mother”. Furthermore, Norman carried his “mother” to the fruit cellar to hide, leaving him isolated. In turn, he has created his “Inner Cave”. As Lila and Sam investigate the place, they get suspicious over where Norman’s mother is, so Lila searches the house. The “Turning Point” would be when Lila finds the corpse of the dead mother and gets Norman arrested. When Norman is apprehended by the police the “mother” personality takes over, which leads to the downfall of Norman Bates, also known as the “Catastrophe”. The cops received information about all the murders Norman has committed from the “mother” and ultimately put Norman in jail or an asylum. This would be the “Aftermath” and “Atonement”, respectively. Now the final stage of this format is “The Return”. Hitchcock creatively used Norman’s mother personality taking over his mind as “The Return” because it would be the return of the mother from death. In closing this film followed the Heroic Journey format, but in an innovative

going back to the other views to see where the policeman is and how is

Throughout cinema, there has always been space in our hearts for the gore and intrigue that come from horror films. Though they come with different plots, there remains “the monster”, the character that brings along disgust, horror, suspense, and even sympathy. In Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), our monster is Norman Bates, the boy next door. This was one of the first times in American cinema that the killer was brought home, paving the way for the future of horror movies. According to Robin Wood in “An Introduction to the America Horror Film” (183-208), Bates follows the formula of the Monster being a human psychotic. This is conveyed through his normal façade portrayed with his introduction, the audience’s ambivalence, the use of

Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) kills Marion Crane (Janet Leigh). Marion who wanted to lead a happy family life with her boy friend Sam Loomis (John Gavin) after marriage and hence steals money and flees Phoenix and becomes a prey for the psychopath Norman Bates. Norman Bates overpowered by his dead mother’s personality kills the woman who comes in between the relationship with his mother. Norman has no other motive. Only his frustrated sexuality when he meets a woman can be the motive. As the case of a split personality syndrome Norman takes the role of his dead mother, and targets those women who come to his motel. Possessed by his mother, he dresses like her and here he slashes Marion on the shower. When Lila Crane (Vera Miles) along with Sam comes in search of

Before the Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock made its way into theaters across the world, film was produced in a completely different way. Some of the elements that were in Psycho were things that nobody saw in movies before. According to Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman, when the movie came out, it took place in “an atmosphere of dark and stifling ‘50s conformity” and that the elements of the film “tore through the repressive ‘50s blandness just a potently as Elvis had.” (Hudson). Alfred Hitchcock changed the way that cinema was made by breaking away from the old, “safe” way of creating a movie and decided to throw all of the unwritten rules of film making out the window. The main ways he accomplished this task was by adding graphic violence, sexuality, and different ways to view the film differently than any other movie before its time.